From the middle of the 3rd century to the middle of the 2nd century BC, Carthage was engaged in a series of wars with Rome (Dorey, P 57). These wars, known as the Punic Wars, ended in the complete defeat of Carthage by Rome. The most prominent figure of the Punic wars was General Hannibal of Pheonician Carthage. During these wars, it’s likely that the colonizing expeditions of the Carthaginians were supported by many emigrants from the Phoenician homeland.
Hannibal was the son of the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca. According to Polybius and Livy, the main Latin sources for his life, Hannibal was taken to Spain by his father and at an early age was made to swear eternal hostility to Rome (Dorey, P 24). From the death of his father in 229/228 until his own death, Hannibal’s life was one of constant struggle against the Roman republic.
His earliest commands were given to him in the Carthaginian province of Spain by Hasdrubal, son-in-law and successor of Hamilcar; and it is clear that he emerged as a successful officer, for, on the assassination of Hasdrubal in 221 BC, the army proclaimed him, at the age of 26, its commander in chief, and the Carthaginian government quickly ratified his field appointment (Dorey, P 27). Some details of Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps have been preserved.
At first danger came from the Allobroges, who attacked the rear of Hannibal’s column. (Along the middle stages of the route, other Celtic groups attacked the baggage animals and rolled heavy stones down from the heights on the enfilade below, thus causing both men and animals to panic and lose their footings on the precipitous paths. Hannibal took countermeasures, but these involved him in heavy losses in men. ) On the third day he captured a Gallic town and provided the army from its stores with rations for two or three days.
Harassed by the daytime attentions of the Gauls from the heights and mistrusting the loyalty of his Gallic guides, Hannibal bivouacked on a large bare rock to cover the passage by night of his horses and pack animals in the gorge below. Snow was falling on the summit of the pass, making the descent even more treacherous. Upon the hardened ice of the previous year’s fall, the soldiers and animals alike slid and foundered in the fresh snow. A landslide blocked the narrow track, and the army was held up for one day while it was cleared.
Finally on the 15th day, after a journey of five months from Cartagena, with 20,000 infantry, 6,000 cavalry, and only a few of the original 38 elephants, Hannibal descended into Italy, having surmounted the difficulties of climate and terrain, the guerrilla tactics of inaccessible tribes, and the major difficulty of commanding a body of men diverse in race and language under conditions to which they were ill fitted (wsu. edu). Hannibal’s forces were now totally inadequate to match the army of Scipio, who had rushed to the Po River to protect the recently founded Roman colonies of Placentia (modern Piacenza) and Cremona.
The first action between the two armies took place on the plains west of the Ticino River, and Hannibal’s Numidian cavalry prevailed. Scipio was severely wounded, and the Romans withdrew to Placentia. After manoeuvres failed to lead to a second engagement, the combined armies of Sempronius Longus and Scipio met Hannibal on the left bank of the Trebia River south of Placentia and were soundly defeated (December 218). This victory brought both Gauls and Ligurians to Hannibal’s side, and his army was considerably augmented by Celtic recruits.
After a severe winter (in which he contracted an eye infection), he was able to advance in the spring of 217 as far as the Arno River (wsu. edu). Although two Roman armies were now in the field against him, he was able to outmanoeuvre that of Gaius Flaminius at Arretium and reached Faesulae (modern Fiesole) and Perugia. By design, this move forced Flaminius’ army into open combat, between the northern shore of Lake Trasimene and the opposite hills, Hannibal’s troops from their prepared positions all but annihilated it, killing thousands and driving others to drown in the lake.
Reinforcements of about 4,000 cavalry under Gaius Centenius were intercepted before they arrived and were also destroyed. The Carthaginian troops were too worn to clinch their victories and march on Rome. Hannibal, furthermore, nurtured the vain hope that the Italian allies of Rome would defect and cause civil war. Hannibal spent the summer of 217 resting at Picenum, but later he ravaged Apulia and Campania; meanwhile the delaying tactics of Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator’s army allowed only skirmishes between the two armies.
Suddenly in early summer of 216 Hannibal moved southward and seized the large army supply depot at Cannae on the Aufidus River (wsu. edu). There early in August the Battle of Cannae (modern Monte di Canne) was fought. While the Gauls and Iberian infantry of Hannibal’s centre line yielded (without breaking) before the drive of the numerically superior Roman infantry, the Libyan infantry and cavalry of Hannibal’s flanks stood fast, overlapped the Roman line, and in a rear encircling movement turned to pursue the victorious legionaries.
This great land victory brought the desired effect: many regions began to defect from the Italic confederacy. But Hannibal did not march on Rome but spent the winter of 216-215 in Capua (wsu. edu). Gradually the Carthaginian fighting strength weakened. The strategy suggested by Fabius was put into operation: to defend the cities loyal to Rome; to try to recover, where opportunity offered, those cities that had fallen to Hannibal; never to enter battle when the enemy offered it but rather to keep the Carthaginians alert in every theatre of war.
Thus Hannibal, unable because of inferior numbers to spread his forces to match the Romans and unable to employ this concentrated strength in a decisive battle, passed from the offensive to a cautious and not always successful defensive in Italy, inadequately supported by the home government at Carthage and, because of the Roman command of the sea, forced to obtain local provisions for protracted and ineffectual operations. Hannibal, except for the capture of Tarentum (modern Taranto), gained only minor victories (215-213).
Reinforcements from Carthage were few. In 213 Casilinum and Arpi (captured by Hannibal in winter 216-215) were recovered by the Romans, and in 211 Hannibal was obliged to march to relieve the Roman siege of Capua (wsu. edu). Despite Hannibal’s quick march to within three miles of the strongly fortified walls of Rome, Capua fell. In the same year, in Sicily, Syracuse fell, and by 209 Tarentum, in south Italy, had also been recaptured by the Romans. Meanwhile Roman successes in Spain dealt severe blows to Carthaginian power there.
In 208 Hasdrubal, detaching a force from the main Carthaginian army, crossed the Alps (probably by his brother’s route) to go to Hannibal’s aid. Hasdrubal’s army was defeated, however, at Metaurus in northern Italy (207) before the Carthaginian armies could effect a junction. His last hope of making a recovery in central Italy thus dashed, Hannibal concentrated his forces in Bruttium, where with the help of his remaining allies he was able to resist Roman pressure for four more years (wsu. edu). Scipio, however, struck at North Africa, breaking Carthage’s principal ally, the Massaesylian Numidians, and endangering Carthage.
In order to go to the help of his country, Hannibal abandoned Italy in 203. Although a preliminary armistice had already been declared and the Carthaginian armies had accepted Scipio’s severe terms (winter 204-203), Hannibal concentrated the remnants of the Carthaginian forces at Hadrumetum (modern Sousse, Tunisia). Almost at the very moment when the ambassadors were returning from Rome with the preliminary peace proposals, the Carthaginians violated the armistice (wsu. edu). Accounts of the campaigns that followed differ greatly.
Both Hannibal and Scipio, in order to link up with their respective Numidian allies (North African or people of Mediterranean stock), moved up the Bagradas River to the region of Zama Regia. Hannibal was now deficient in cavalry; the mercenary troops of his front line and the African infantry (sub-Saharan or black African stock) of his second line together were routed, and Scipio, seeing that Hannibal’s third line, the veteran soldiers, was still intact, reformed his front and brought up the Numidian cavalry of Masinissa, his Numidian ally, in the Carthaginian rear.
Hannibal lost 20,000 men in defeat, but he himself escaped Masinissa’s pursuit (encyclopedia. com). The treaty between Rome and Carthage that was concluded a year after the Battle of Zama frustrated the entire object of Hannibal’s life, but his hopes of taking arms once more against Rome lived on. Although accused of having misconducted the war, he was made a suffete (a civil magistrate) in addition to retaining his military command, and as suffete he was able to overthrow the power of the oligarchic governing faction at Carthage and bring about certain administrative and constitutional changes.
He thus became unpopular with a certain faction of the Carthaginian nobility, and according to Livy he was denounced to the Romans as inciting Antiochus III of Syria to take up arms against the Romans. Hannibal fled to the court of Antiochus at Ephesus, where he was welcome at first, since Antiochus was preparing war with Rome. Soon, however, the presence of Hannibal and the sound advice he gave concerning the conduct of the war became a source of embarrassment, and he was sent to raise and command a fleet for Antiochus in the Phoenician cities.
Inexperienced as he was in naval matters, he was defeated by the Roman fleet off Side, in Pamphylia. Antiochus was defeated on land at Magnesia in 190, and one of the terms demanded of him by the Romans was that Hannibal should be surrendered. Again accounts of Hannibal’s subsequent actions vary; either he fled via Crete to the court of King Prusias of Bithynia, or he joined the rebel forces in Armenia.
Eventually he took refuge with Prusias, who at this time was engaged in warfare with Rome’s ally, King Eumenes II of Pergamum. He served Prusias in this war, and, in one of the victories he gained over Eumenes at sea, it is said that he threw cauldrons of snakes into the enemy vessels (encyclopedia. com). Finally the Romans by unknown means put themselves in a position to demand the surrender of Hannibal. Unable this time to escape, Hannibal poisoned himself in the Bithynian village of Libyssa (encyclopedia. m).
Much that was said against him might be ascribed to individual activities of his generals, but even this is uncertain. His physical bravery is well attested, and his temperance and continence were praised. His power of leadership is implied in the lack of rioting and disharmony in that mixed body of men he commanded for so long, while the care he took for his elephants and horses as well as his men gives proof of a humane disposition.
His treachery, that punica fides that the Romans detested, could from another point of view pass for resourcefulness in war and boldness in stratagem (encyclopedia. com). Of his wit and subtlety of speech many anecdotes remain. He spoke Greek and Latin fluently, but more personal information is absent from his biographies. He is shown in the only surviving portraits, the silver coins of Cartagena struck in 221, the year of his election as general, with a youthful, beardless, and pleasant face.
